The master of a tanker off Oman radioed in a report on Saturday morning. Two Revolutionary Guard gunboats had come alongside, no VHF challenge, and fired on the ship.
“Tanker and crew are reported safe. Authorities are investigating,” the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO) said in its warning. It put the incident 20 nautical miles northeast of Oman. The UKMTO’s map placed it off the north-west coast of the United Arab Emirates.
The same body logged a second incident. A container ship was struck by an unknown projectile 25 nautical miles northeast of Oman. Some containers were damaged, but no fires, environmental impact or casualties were reported.
A strait opened, then shut
The shooting followed an Iranian announcement earlier on Saturday that restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz were back in place. Iran’s joint military command said control of the waterway had “returned to its previous state” under “strict management and control of the armed forces.” State broadcaster IRIB said the lane was “now closed again and passage requires Iran approval.”
Days earlier Tehran had promised the strait would stay “fully open” for the last stretch of the two-week ceasefire, and tracking data showed a line of oil tankers passing through. The US then said that reopening the strait would not end its blockade of Iran-linked shipping. President Donald Trump said the blockade “will remain in full force” until Iran agrees to a deal that covers its nuclear programme.
Trump said Washington would not be “blackmailed” by a closed waterway. He also said “very good conversations” were under way with Iran, and he accused Tehran of acting “a little cute as they have for 47 years.”
About a fifth of the world’s oil moves through the strait, so further limits would tighten supply and push prices up again. Prices had begun to slip on Friday on hopes of a deal.
Threats and talks
Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, issued a rare statement. He has not been seen in public since before the war. “Just as [Iran’s] drones strike like lightning upon the American and Zionist aggressors, its valiant navy is ready to make the enemies taste the bitterness of new defeats,” he said.
Trump has warned that bombing will resume if no peace is reached by Wednesday, and he threatened to start “dropping bombs” if Iran does not give up its nuclear ambitions. Yet he sounded hopeful aboard Air Force One. “We’re negotiating over the weekend. I expect things to go well,” he told reporters, adding: “You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and that supersedes everything else.” The White House was weighing the release of $20billion in frozen Iranian assets to entice Tehran to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Prospects for new high-level talks stayed unclear. Some diplomats doubted a meeting was possible that weekend, and there were no signs of preparations in Islamabad early Saturday. Last weekend’s talks there, the highest-level US-Iran negotiations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ended without agreement. Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir has finished three days of talks in Tehran. A Pakistani source said a meeting could yield an initial memorandum of understanding, followed by a full peace agreement within 60 days. Foreign minister Ishaq Dar said Pakistani officials still see the sides edging toward a deal before the April 22 ceasefire deadline.
The war began on February 28 with a US-Israeli attack on Iran. It has killed thousands and spread to Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
Sources
- Iranian gunboats fire on ships as Strait of Hormuz closed again
- Iranian gunboats reportedly fire on tanker in Strait of Hormuz
Sources
- Iranian gunboats fire on ships as Tehran closes Strait… | The Standard
- Iranian gunboats reportedly fire on tanker in Strait of Hormuz
